As a Moth to a Flame
by CatS81
Summary: An angsty first-person examination of Grace's thoughts on the truth of her feelings for Boyd, set during the fifth series episode, 'Straw Dog'...


**Disclaimer**: I don't own 'Waking the Dead' or any of its characters, the BBC has that honour – I'm just taking them out to play for a bit :)

**Pairing**: Boyd/Grace

**Rating**: K+ (PG).

**Spoilers**: Series 5 episode, 'Straw Dog'

**A/N**: This short piece came to me suddenly when I was re-watching 'Straw Dog' for about the millionth time! :) It's an addendum to the scene where Grace is hugging Charles and through her office window she sees who she thinks is Harry Taylor but who is actually Boyd. A warning – this is not a happy story, it explores Grace's feelings in the first person and it came out very much as angst, as is the way sometimes with the Boyd/Grace dynamic, in my head at least! Anyway, I hope you like it x

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I don't want to look but somehow I can't tear my gaze away. Boyd...becoming Harry...becoming Boyd again. The answer is staring me in the face, as it has been for years, a truth so startlingly simple, pain arcs across my chest as it forces the breath from my body. And yet, despite this intense physical reaction, I still don't want to face it. I still don't want to acknowledge the power that this truth has over me. The power it's always had over me.

I blink as I realise that Charles is speaking and I try to focus on his words, smiling vaguely as he pulls away from me and leaves the room. I sigh deeply as my office door drifts closed, allowing the air to circulate through my lungs, my bones, my skin, willing the return of my equilibrium but knowing that my efforts are hopelessly futile. Boyd and Harry. Harry and Boyd. My past and my present seamlessly, inextricably merged for the briefest of moments but enough to have caused an aching tension across my chest, a twisting of my stomach.

That I was in love with Harry Taylor all those years ago is not in question. The truth, the reality of that, precipitates a strange tumult of emotions in my throat; regret, guilt, desperation but in equal measure, nostalgia, joy, happiness. He fulfilled a fundamental need in me back then...

...As Boyd fulfills a need in me now. However self-destructive the truth of that statement may be. I close my eyes as I allow the thought to creep tentatively to the front of my mind, to drift slowly into my full awareness, to penetrate the centre of my consciousness. It feels vaguely uncomfortable as it expands to absorb all of my senses and I realise it's because the mental placement of this notion is completely unfamiliar to me; this is a truth that, above all else, I ordinarily keep buried deep in my subconscious, relegated from my normal thought processes, suppressed into the very essence of my being. And I do this at all costs, refusing to allow it to breathe, to blossom, to flourish in my mind...and, moreover, to grow in my heart. Because to do so would ultimately be futile, would ultimately bring me despair...which I'm unsure that I'm equipped to cope with, even at my age and with my professional background, my academic training.

The truth is that I am desperately in love with Peter Boyd, that I have been for years. And as I examine the thought consciously for the first time in recent history, I feel a sob escape my lips, hot tears pricking instantly at the corners of my eyes and I take a deep, shuddering breath to slow the pounding of my heart, to quell the ache in my throat. Because the reality is that this truth is excruciating in its futility, agonising in its hopelessness; a truth that I know will never be reciprocated and one that will ultimately cause nothing but self destruction. A truth that has no place in my conscious mind. But one that I know will damage me long term if I continue to repress it as I have been.

The irony is that I've advised people in situations akin to this one all of my professional life. I've taught them coping mechanisms, management strategies, redirection techniques. Physician, heal thyself. I smile bitterly at the notion. Because I have no idea how to deal with this, no sense of how to cope with him on a daily basis in the full glare of this inconvenient truth. But I do know this; for all of the agony that this truth has caused me and continues to cause me, for all of the haunted dreams and the waking heartache...I am certain that we are somehow meant to be part of each others lives. And I am motivated as much by this certainty as I am by the underlying demons of my heart. I am inexplicably, inexorably, immeasurably drawn to him, despite the unshakeable knowledge that he will ultimately be the cause of my destruction if I allow this truth to surface in his presence.

And so, with this notion reaffirmed, I resolutely lay the truth to rest once more, forcing it back to the depths where I know it rightly belongs. Five years of repression, sublimation and denial. Five years of battling, coping and surviving, all crushed into the deepest corners of my mind. I take a shaky breath as I slide the mental locks into place, securing the prison. This truth will not escape again.


End file.
